Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-11
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Holly Cairns (SD), Cork South-West

Today, the Government is using the guillotine to ram through legislation that will have one overriding result, that is, allowing record rents rip even further. Once this legislation goes through, it will mean monthly rents for new tenancies being reset to market rates. People watching at home might not know what that means because the phrase "market rate" does not capture what is really going on here. People will see monthly rents for new tenancies soaring to €2,500 to €3,000 all over the country. That is €30,000 or more every year in after-tax income that renters will be expected to pay. What nurse, teacher, garda or retail worker can afford that? What will happen to our critical public services when staff cannot afford their rents? What will happen to our cities and our towns when people are priced out of them? Why would young people stay here through their 20s and 30s just to hand over all of their income to a landlord? What kind of a life is that? How many more children are going to become homeless because of this legislation today?
I welcome some aspects of the legislation. The Social Democrats have fought for a long time for improved security for renters and for a rent price register. However, the impact of some positive reforms is going to be completely swallowed up by the impact of what the Government is doing on rent prices because people are already struggling to pay record rents. More and more of them are being forced to move back in with their parents or to sleep on friends' couches and record numbers are becoming homeless. This is not just a housing disaster; it is a social catastrophe.
The Social Democrats would do things differently. Just last week, we published detailed plans explaining how we would set up a State construction company and acquire four modular home factories to turbocharge the delivery of social and affordable homes. We have also published plans to set up a new State savings scheme to use just some of the nearly €170 billion sitting in Irish deposit accounts, and earning almost no interest, to build the homes we so desperately need. This could be a real national effort to finally address this crisis that hundreds and thousands of us could be a part of. There are solutions to this housing disaster. There is another way. The Government could finally admit that its approach is not working. It could change course and direction.
What the Government is doing is a betrayal because these plans did not feature in the Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael general election manifestos or in the programme for Government. The coalition parties misled the public on housing figures to get back into power, and then quickly went back to making policies that mainly protect-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-11